


Butler Spider

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 07:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9808826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: The Dremora Butler is summoned, once again, to carry the things the Dragonborn doesn't want to. This time, however, he is given charge of an annoying mechanical creature.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LauraDoloresIssum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LauraDoloresIssum/gifts).



> Written for LauraDoloresIssum.

It was twilight when the Dragonborn summoned the Butler to the outskirts of Solstheim. Again. 

The Butler had also been summoned at dawn and a little before lunch, simply for minor gear swaps. Some ore, a stolen ring, a broom. Truly this hero led a riveting existence. The Butler could not be positive that she hadn’t been standing there, motionless, unblinking, for the entire day. It wouldn’t be out of character. 

“I don’t suppose you’ll carry some of this for a while,” the Butler said tiredly. It was a purposeful inflection. He actually wasn’t bothered by the weapon equipped to his back or the crap shoved in his bags. Most of his time was spent in Oblivion, wandering the literature-covered spires of Apocrypha. There, in the realm he belonged, such trivial, material things were barely noticeable. And even in this plane, where he could feel the weight pulling on his shoulders, it hardly mattered. But the Dragonborn didn’t have to know that. 

The Dragonborn, shockingly, did not want to carry some of the things for a while. Instead, she rifled through his bags and eventually handed over seventeen containers of dwarven oil. Wonderful. The Butler felt incredibly appreciated. 

“It’s been _so_ much fun,” the Butler said, and took his leave. He blinked on the ashy plains, and opened his eyes to the spires of his home. It wasn’t that Solstheim wasn’t thrilling (though it wasn’t.) It was simply that the Dragonborn was done with him, and theirs was a purely business relationship. That was how butlering worked. Also, she was wearing a flower crown now, and something about it made him deeply uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the fact that flowers were supposed to grow wild. Perhaps it was the fact that underneath it she looked more pissed off than usual. 

Therefore it was to his genuine exasperation that he felt the tug in the back of his skull that meant the Dragonborn was calling him _again,_ not a moment later. 

“What is it _now?”_ he said, eyeing the Dragonborn with distaste. She hadn’t even taken off the stupid headdress. 

“Here. Watch this for me,” the Dragonborn said, and gestured at the ground to her left. There, scuttling around her ankles, was a mechanical creature. Its limbs hissed steam, and it stood up on a few of its many legs to look at the surroundings with, well, the Butler wasn’t sure it had a face, but that was hardly a concern. Lots of things didn’t have faces. 

“What do you mean, ‘watch it’?” the Butler asked. The thing was Dwemer make, and he didn’t particularly care for that kind of machinations. 

“I mean I’m going somewhere dangerous, and I don’t want this spider to get hurt,” the Dragonborn said. A strange attitude, coming from someone who didn’t seem able to go a day without murdering _something._ (That, the Butler could respect. Murder was a perfectly acceptable pastime.) “So I’m giving it to you to look after. Keep it safe.” 

The Butler frowned down at the Dwemer thing again. “I wasn’t aware ‘petsitter’ was in the contract,” he said. 

“Oh, and I don’t know if you’ll need any supplies, but the Dwarven Oil is probably good for it.” The Dragonborn shooed the creature towards the butler and nodded once. Then she backed away, turned her gaze to a point across town, and shouted something. The air blurred with her word (whatever it was, the butler couldn’t care less) and she was gone. 

The Dwemer thing hissed. 

The Butler stared at it. It was so much more animated than the things he usually had to carry. That might be annoying. 

He knelt down and opened his bag in the direction of the machine. “Well, go in,” he said, trying to sound as patronizing as possible. 

The machine scuttled around in a circle, and did not enter the bag. 

The Butler scowled. He shook the bag a little more, to emphasize the dwarven oil (and broom) nestled there. 

The spider clicked, unimpressed. 

“Oh fine,” the Butler said. “Be like that.” He closed up the sack, placed a hand on the machine’s back, and blinked. In the darkness, he had a moment to notice the thrum of strange, steam-powered workings under his fingertips, before his eyes peeled open and he was back in Apocrypha. The greenish grey tentacled landscape stretched up above his head, brown and timeless pages drifted through the air. Ah, home. 

The Butler straightened up, and immediately the spider was off, scuttling across the ground and whirring slightly. It came to a wall, twisted around, and ran to another wall. Foolish thing. It has probably never been in any other plane of existence before. The Butler watched it’s strange exploration for a moment before deciding that it was probably safe enough. If it happened to fall off a bridge into the endlessly swarming pools below… well that was hardly his fault, was it? He was keeping the Dragonborn’s spider away from her adventure, that was all that had been asked of him. 

He put down the sack of things, and the dwarven oil jars clinked slightly. Then he slipped through a subtle, slim doorway in the wall to his reading nook. It was the cleanest and most well-dusted area in all of Apocrypha; the Butler knew this because he dusted it regularly and was, shall we say, highly discouraged from dusting the rest of the realm. It was also organized with a system far superior to that of the rest of this giant library; that was the Butler’s secret. He settled down in his chair, which resembled a mass of tentacles but was actually quite comfortable, crossed his ankles, and pulled a book off the shelf. Right now he was busy pondering the extended edition of _Reality and Other Falsehoods._ After all, he had nothing but time. 

But he had barely begun his contemplation of the creation of the world, if indeed it _was_ created, when he was disturbed by a sharp clicking noise at the doorway. The Dwemer spider was in the doorway, carefully maneuvering its legs through the narrow doorway. 

“What are you doing here?” the Butler asked. 

The spider, predictably, didn’t answer. But it did whir in a way that seemed vaguely friendly. 

“No,” said the Butler, and turned back to his book. So intent on he was ignoring the spider that he didn’t look up again until a metal leg bumped against his and the spider clicked. 

“Go away,” the Butler said. His nook was really only appropriate for one, and he didn’t want the spider knocking down his carefully ordered manuscripts. 

“Whizzzclick,” said the spider. It folded it’s legs underneath it and settled down next to the Butler’s chair, seeming quite determined to stay there. At least it wasn’t disrupting anything. 

“Suit yourself,” the Butler said, in the same disapproving tone he used for the Dragonborn. As usual, it was ignored. He turned back to his book and read another several pages before the spider propped itself up on its front legs and looked around. It made a buzzing noise, then settled back down. The Butler snorted at it. 

He snorted again the next time it got up, this time with the intent to go somewhere. It was a machine, but it certainly acted as though it had intentions and a will of its own. Perhaps it did. Perhaps its reality was simply different from that of the Dremora. Strange. 

The spider carefully squeezed its way through the doorway, spinning around so it could poke one leg out the doorway at a time and not get stuck. It took only short time (or so it seemed; if time could truly be measured in this realm), much shorter than it had last time. Interesting. 

Without the strange, mechanical noises, the nook suddenly seemed gapingly silent. But that was ridiculous. 

It was so silent, though, that that it was quite easy for the Butler to catch the sound of a lumbering Seeker patrolling aimlessly through the corridors and spires. Seekers couldn’t fit into his crevice, so that didn’t matter. 

But he was not at all sure what a Seeker might do to a curious Dwemer machine. 

With a long-suffering sigh, he stood up and poked his head out the door. The Seeker didn’t notice him as it passed, tentacles feeling for the walls, eyes swollen and squinting from too many attempts at reading the writing on the walls. Unfortunately, the Seeker was also between the Butler and the spider, which was currently poking around the edges of the path, one leg hovering over a steep and possibly damaging drop. 

“I should have known,” the Butler said. The danger wasn’t imminent, nor inevitable, but it was certainly sloppy work to leave without intervening. And the Butler might be long-suffering, but he was _not_ sloppy. 

He stepped forward and tapped the Seeker on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Sirrah,” he said, using the formality in the most disparaging manner possible. “I believe you are needed elsewhere.” Then with a nudge of effort that translated into a shove of power, he pushed the Seeker off the edge and down onto the platforms several thousand bound stories below. It would be fine. Probably. Actually, the Butler didn’t particularly care. 

“And you,” he said, turning to the spider. “More trouble than you’re worth. Come back to the room why don’t you.” 

When he turned back, he was strangely gratified to hear the spider clicking away behind him.

 _Training,_ the Butler thought, once the spider had windmilled it’s way through the doorway and back into the relative order of the Butler’s space. _Reinforcement._

So he stepped outside again to retrieve one of the jugs of Dwarven Oil, which he offered to the machine. 

The spider didn’t seem to have any particular use for it, but seemed pleased anyway. It hummed away happily. The Butler patted its warm shell before he settled back to his book. 

He could, perhaps, get used to this. 

—

Two weeks later, when the Dragonborn called him again and asked for the spider back, the Butler shook his head. 

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he said firmly. “My orders were to keep it safe. And it hardly seems likely that you’re going to be settling down to a quiet life of smithing.” 

The Dragonborn gave him a series of expressions, that ended up with a suspicious _I guess…_ expression. 

“I’m not wrong,” the Butler said. “Unlike some people, I don’t make it a habit to be. Also, do you have any more Dwarven oil?”

**Author's Note:**

> Check out LauraDoloresIssum's sequel, now found here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9809438
> 
> Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you thought!


End file.
